Albums of 2018

A bit early I know, but what albums have you enjoyed this year? Its been a strange year for me, I've hardly been to any gigs and I've bought less new albums than I have in years. The trend continues though of me mostly buying albums by artists I've been into for years, I generally can't be bothered checking out new stuff, unless a track/review etc, really leaps out at me and I discover a new band that I actually like and deem worthy of buying a CD of. So, by default, these are my albums of the year as they are the only ones I recall buying:

At some point I'll probably pick up this year's stuff by Johnny Marr, Interpol, Suede, Kurt Vile, Deafheaven & This Will Destroy You. Looking forward to the new Mono and The Twilight Sad albums in Jan, and hopefully the long awaited deluxe reissue of Wish by The Cure.

Comments

Spiritualized's long awaited new album "And Nothing Hurt" is rather impressive - certainly better than the last two. If it turns out to be Jason's last epic work, he's going out in classy style!

I didn't know there was a deluxe edition of "Wish" coming. I can't really muster much enthusiasm, as "Disintegration" was such a good album and tour (including the amazing "Entreat" live document) that I found the sharp turn towards jangly upbeat pop incredibly disappointing.

To be fair they were amazing live touring that album too, but played a wider range of material compared to the previous tour - including an epic set closing version of A Forest!

These are the albums I really liked this year, in some sort of order. 'This Is My Dinner' may well force itself in there, judging by the tracks so far. There's been some good stuff this year, though the Low album is the best IMHO.

I didn't know there was a deluxe edition of "Wish" coming. I can't really muster much enthusiasm, as "Disintegration" was such a good album and tour (including the amazing "Entreat" live document) that I found the sharp turn towards jangly upbeat pop incredibly disappointing.

Without wanting to derail the thread (there’s a Cure thread ongoing), yes the Disintegration era was incredible, and though I didn’t attend as I was 10 years old, I hear that The Prayer Tour was amazing too.

I don’t think Wish was wall to wall ‘jangly upbeat pop’, just a few songs (like any Cure album really). Songs like Open, From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea, Cut & To Wish Impossible Things are immense and certainly not upbeat jangly pop. Presuming you checked out after Wish, you’d have missed out on the outstanding Bloodflowers album. To me the only really excellent post Wish album. I’m a huge Cure fan but at times there is only so much happy pop I can take, hence why I don’t go to their festival shows. I prefer to hear more album tracks & rarities than just single after single.

I’ve said it before on this site but I think the 6 Wish era b-sides are superb, and whilst we have remastered versions of them on the Join The Dots box set, I love the thought of them joining the 4 ‘Lost Wishes’ tracks on disc 2 of a Wish reissue. Amazing to think that to this day, those 4 instrumentals still haven’t had an official release beyond their initial limited cassette release